Think about what is on your phone right now. Years of family photographs, emails going back a decade or more, a few social media profiles, a PayPal balance you had half forgotten about and a string of subscriptions quietly renewing every month. For most of us, a large part of life, and often some of our money, now exists only online.

When someone dies, their executor has to find and deal with everything they owned. Bank accounts and houses tend to leave a paper trail. Digital assets often do not. Here we look at why your executor needs to know what exists, and why the answer is not to write your passwords into your Will.

What Counts as a Digital Asset?

Some digital assets have real financial value: PayPal and other online payment balances, cryptocurrency, online-only savings or investment accounts, domain names and websites, and monetised accounts such as a video channel, an online shop or self-published books that keep earning after you have gone.

Others are mostly sentimental: photographs and videos stored in the cloud, email accounts, social media profiles, blogs and personal files. They may be worth little in money, but to a grieving family they can be priceless.

And some cost money rather than hold it. Streaming services, software, cloud storage and online memberships keep billing until someone cancels them.

The Law Has Moved, But Only So Far

Scots law has moved on this year. The Digital Assets (Scotland) Act 2026 came into force on 1 July 2026. It confirms that certain digital assets, most obviously cryptocurrency, are property that can be owned, and treats them as moveable property. That means they form part of your estate, can pass under your Will, and count towards the moveable estate from which Legal Rights can be claimed.

The Act also presumes that whoever controls a digital asset owns it. For cryptocurrency, control usually means holding the private keys. If nobody knows where the keys are kept, the asset can be lost for good, whatever the law says about ownership.

What the Act does not cover is most of your digital life. Photographs, emails and social media accounts are not the kind of asset it deals with, and what happens to them is still largely decided by the terms and conditions you accepted when you opened the account. Many of those terms say the account is personal to you and cannot be transferred. Films, music and e-books you have "bought" are often licences to use rather than things you own, and the licence may simply end when you do.

Why Your Executor Needs to Know What Exists

To obtain Confirmation, your executor must prepare an inventory of everything you owned at the date of death, with values. They cannot include assets they do not know about, and anything that comes to light later may mean a corrective inventory and a return to the court, adding time and cost to the executry.

There are practical reasons too. Subscriptions carry on taking payments. Domain names are registered for fixed periods and can lapse, taking a website or business email address with them. Dormant accounts can attract fraudsters. And if nobody knows which cloud service holds the family photographs, there may be no way of getting them back.

Most large providers, PayPal included, have a bereavement process for closing accounts and releasing balances to executors. But your executor can only start that process if they know the account is there.

Why Your Passwords Do Not Belong in Your Will

It can be tempting to solve the problem by listing your usernames and passwords in your Will. Please do not.

In Scotland, once Confirmation has been granted, your Will becomes a public document and anyone can request a copy for a small fee. Passwords also change, and many accounts use two-factor authentication, so a password on its own may not open them anyway.

There is a legal point as well. Logging into someone else's account with their password, however well meant, is usually a breach of the provider's terms and can, in some circumstances, risk falling foul of computer misuse law. Your executor should deal with your accounts through the proper channels.

A Map, Not the Keys

What your executor really needs is a map. We suggest keeping a simple record, separate from your Will, that sets out:

• the online accounts and services you use;
• any digital assets with value, such as payment balances, cryptocurrency, domains or income-earning accounts, and where they are held;
• any subscriptions that will need to be cancelled; and
• what you would like to happen to each one, for example whether a social media profile should be closed or kept as a memorial.

Keep it somewhere secure, review it from time to time and tell your executor where to find it. Wishes about who should receive copies of your photographs, or how your accounts should be handled, can also be set out in a letter of wishes that sits alongside your Will.

It is also worth using the tools larger providers offer. Apple lets you nominate a Legacy Contact who can request access to your photos, messages and files after your death. Google's Inactive Account Manager lets you choose who receives your data if your account goes unused for a set period, or arrange for the account to be deleted. Facebook lets you name a legacy contact to look after a memorialised profile or ask for your account to be deleted instead. These settings sit outside your Will, so check they are consistent with it.

Finally, check that your Will gives your executors clear powers to deal with digital assets. A well-drafted Will can do that without containing a single password.

How Paris Steele Can Help

Our Private Client team can review your Will, help you prepare a letter of wishes, and guide executors through Confirmation where digital assets form part of the estate.

To arrange a free initial consultation, contact our North Berwick office on 01620 892138 or our Dunbar office on 01368 862746, or get in touch with us online.

This article is provided for general information purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal advice. The information contained in this article is accurate to the best of our knowledge as at the date of publication. As laws, regulations, guidance, and other relevant information may change over time, the content of this article may no longer reflect the current position. The information contained herein may not apply to your specific circumstances and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional legal advice. If you require advice about your own situation, we recommend that you seek advice from a qualified solicitor. If you would like to discuss your circumstances or find out how we may be able to assist, please do not hesitate to contact our team for advice tailored to your individual needs.